It is well known to form coreless paper roll products such as rolls of toilet tissue on round mandrels. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,853,279, issued Dec. 10, 1974, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,856,226, issued Dec. 24, 1974, both disclose methods and apparatus wherein coreless rolls are formed by winding webs of tissue or other paper types directly about round winding mandrels.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,487,378, issued Dec. 11, 1984, discloses a coreless toilet paper roll having a center hole which is formed by winding toilet paper on a winding shaft having a polygonal or gear-shaped section and then extracting the polygonal or gear-shaped winding shaft from the roll. The special shafts which are employed when practicing the method of U.S. Pat. No. 4,487,378 are obviously quite expensive relative to round mandrels or winding shafts. Also, each specially constructed shaft can only form one specific aperture configuration.
Other patents of some relevance to the present invention of which applicant is aware are the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 1,882,012, issued Oct. 11, 1932, U.S. Pat. No. 1,577,326, issued Mar. 16, 1926, U.S. Pat. No. 1,927,197, issued Sep. 19, 1933, U.S. Pat. No. 494,600, issued Apr. 4, 1983, U.S. Pat. No. 2,688,452, issued Sep. 7, 1954, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,297,155, issued Jan. 10, 1967.